Welcome to The Software Essentialist!
Welcome to the Software Essentialist Online program
Khalil here, and I just really want to congratulate you on the incredible decision you've just made to invest in this online program and invest in yourself and your skills, and your professional development.
Now, here's the thing, most developers don't invest in themselves.
It kind of is challenging to embrace this reality that it's just a mess.
It's kind of a mess out there, like... legitimately.
So, if that was you and you were feeling confused, bored, frustrated, angry like you want to punch a hole in the wall, or something like that,
And you're reading tons of books and doing all kinds of weird stuff.
I just wanna say, you're here now and you don't have to be worrying about that anymore because you're in the right place and you're among good people.
You're among me and the other software, essentialist alumni, and all of the other students.
You are on a journey.
You're not gonna be the same developer. You were leaving this program as you were when you came in.
📌 You can ping me or any of the other @Software Essentialist Alumni within the course chat.
The goal of this program
So what are we gonna do in this program?
A lot of different things, but at the end of the day, the main goal is for you to become the type of developer who can write scalable code in any context, regardless of the language framework, platform, front end backend, starting from the project, an existing project.
Or even if you're just starting from a new feature, the goal is for you to be able to maneuver yourself into any environment and rely upon the 80 20 of software design testing and architecture that we're gonna get really, really deep into.
And have the confidence to know what to do in those different scenarios.
Ultimately, this is about becoming a professional developer and learning the things that all professional developers know. And evidently, I've been able to compile all of that in 12 different essentials, which you're going to gain a very high level of competency in.
So if you are a:
- front-end
- self-taught
- even a backend developer,
- or you want to be an entrepreneurial developer,
- or just in general, you're a developer, that was lacking clarity...
What we're gonna do is we're gonna move you all the way over to have a lot of clarity, so much clarity that you're actually gonna be probably bored
And that's gonna be good because: when you're bored, that's when we can tap into creativity, instead of when you're stressed out and you don't know what to do because you don't have clarity.
How to be successful in this program
So in order for us to develop this very strong foundation for you, built on top of domain-driven design, test-driven developments, behavior-driven developments, object design, architectural principles, architectural styles, all these different things -- in order to develop these things, we're going to need to talk about expectations: what's required on your part.
Practice
This is a program that is heavily focused on skills and to build skills we need to practice. We need to drill it and drill it. Drill it. And that means we're gonna be writing a lot of code and we're going to be doing a lot of design.
Make lots of mistakes
Now the thing about design is it can feel non-linear.
It can be frustrating to feel like you have to start over from scratch again, but that is a sign of progress.
This is kind of what makes design feel like an art form.
You have to make mistakes.
Tear it apart and start all over. So, I want you to know this right away early and we're gonna develop this skill just like you develop muscle on your dang arm.
We have to stress it consistently and over and over.
Follow the exact instructions
Now, I completely believe that if you go through this course you do what is instructed of you, and you apply what I teach you, you're gonna unlock an entirely different way of approaching the world of
Pre-launch
During the pre-launch (March 1st to 14th)
Now, with that said, I want to talk quickly about what we're going to be doing over the next few weeks.
If you're currently watching this, the course is in the pre-launch phase, and the pre-launch phase is going to run between these two dates (March 1st and March 14th).
And by the end of the pre-launch, if I haven't already, there's going to be enough content for you to go through the first two essentials and it's gonna give you the foundation for you to begin feedback looping and developing your test-driven development skills from the ground up, at least at the Feedback Loop Level: 1 - (Unit: Stateless).
That's gonna make a whole lot more sense coming up.
If you didn't watch the training from earlier, don't worry about it -- we're gonna have you writing code really, really soon.
After the pre-launch
At the end of the pre-launch, I'm going to shift all of my focus over to this community, this course, and just getting all of the rest of the modules built out.
solidbook
Wow real quick, I just want to call something out to anyone who's a solid book reader.
Now solid book. If you're not familiar with this, this was my first attempt at creating what would become the Software Essentialist Mentorship training, and then would become this course, and what is going to become the final version of solid book io, which is also going to change entirely.
The name is changing, so, what you're going through right now in this program, is essentially the vehicle that the book is taking you along.
Now, the difference is you have me here, you have the Software Essentialist Alumni, and you are part of the larger community with a bunch of different projects that we are going to build in this program.
If you are a solid book reader, you will get access to the final version of that book, which is going to be called Software Essentialism (or The Essentials).
Assignments
1. Join the Discord Community
The community for this course lives within a private set of channels in Phronesis Labs (the public community Discord for the first-principles-focused dev community).
You're going to want to do the following:
(If you haven't joined the public Phronesis Labs community yet)
- Join the Phronesis Labs community at khalilstemmler.com/community
- Accept the rules
- Go to the #choose-your-interests-channel and select your interests, then click the ✅ to get access to the rest of the server
Then, get access to The Software Essentialist course community
- Copy your unique Discord identifier (username + discriminator) to the clipboard (see here for an example)
- Head to the next module, "Join The Discord Community"
- Submit the form with your Discord identifier and the email you used to purchase the course
- Head back to Discord and notice that you have access to The Software Essentialist channels
2. Introduce yourself
Do NOT skip this part, my friend. You're going to be building projects and learning from me, the other Software Essentialist Alumni, and collaborating with your classmates.
Head into the #meet channel and post an introduction containing:
- Why you joined
- Three or more things you'd like to see in the course
- Make sure to include the #earlyAdopter hashtag somewhere in your post.
📌 Why am I asking you to include the hashtag?
We're going to be learning a lot in this course, and I don't want you to be flipping around and skipping things. I'd love for you to ask questions and seek help, but I'm going to be checking to see if you're the type of person that follows instructions or not by first looking for your username + the hashtag.
This tells me a lot.
So go ahead, meet your fellow crafters & classmates, and start making connections.
3. Check out the outline for the course (& leave feedback in #course-chat)
You can read the high-level outline for the course here. Drop your thoughts and questions into #course-chat.
Conclusion: To Mastery
I can't express how proud I am of your decision to embark on this path.
These 12 Essentials have taken me years to learn and document, and you're going to be able to walk the same path in a faction of the time.
Get ready to get inspired by your own capabilities. I can't wait to see what you choose to do with your career and your life at the end of the program.
Just promise not to forget about us once you pass the finish line.
To Mastery,
Khalil

Excited!
I am looking forward to getting started.
Just wanted to make you aware, this link: see here for an example in the text below, does not work.
Copy your unique Discord identifier (username + discriminator) to the clipboard (see here for an example)
returns -> This content is no longer available.
Can't wait to get started :D
Excited 😜
woo!
Let's go!